Walt Whitman and The Civil War: A Test of Poetry/A Vision of Democracy

April 8, 2014

Walt Whitman and The Civil War: A Test of Poetry/A Vision of Democracy with Dave Caserio. Based on the poetry, prose, journals, and letters of Walt Whitman, Caserio takes the audience from the election of Abraham Lincoln to the heady onset of the Civil War, from battlefield to hospital ward, through the long years in between to the conflict’s end and the death of Lincoln. The Civil War is one of the central experiences of our country; it not only preserved the Union but redefined the ideals that governed that Union. Whitman, as poet, nurse, and journalist, witnessed this enduring American experience. Revisit and rediscover, through the language of Walt Whitman, “the real war [that] would never get in books.”

Dave Caserio of Billings, Montana, is a poet, performance artist, and former instructor in literature and writing.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Partial funding for this Humanities Montana program is provided by a legislative grant from Montana’s Cultural Trust and from the National Endowment for the Humanities.